Sunday, November 03, 2013

Once upon a time, in a working world far, far away, I had a
fairly decent paying job (at least well above a living wage) with a fairly good
sized company, until I decided to just walk away.

On June 6, 2013, immediately after a closed door one on one
meeting with my division's vice president, I walked off, as in, quit without
notice. No two weeks, no new job lined up, nothing.

I am still unemployed. I have applied for numerous jobs and
have been formally rejected numerous times. I can not collect state
unemployment insurance because, well, duh, I quit without notice.

I envision that, in future years, I will probably be used as the example of "the guy who quit without notice". I anticipate that no one will ever even consider to hire me again, and I will die broke on the streets.

Which, actually, is just fine with me, should that happen.

I will never, ever, regret my decision to quit, and
especially without notice.

I had worked 16 years for a large metropolitan newspaper. In
fact, by circulation numbers, it is one of the top 40 papers currently in
publication. Back in 1997,I walked
into a job fair, responding to a want ad in the same paper for a part time
customer service call center position. After a spelling test, interview, and
physical exam, I was offered a job. I wasn't even that concerned about getting
hired back then. I already had a part time job and simply saw this as a long
shot opportunity to break away from outbound telemarketing and into inbound
call center experience.

Eventually, I gained enough hours to drop my second part
time job and work only at the newspaper, although still classified as part time, but working frequent 40-plus hour weeks. I worked very hard at my call
center job, and had added duties after the phones turned off, sorting and
sending out carrier and truck records for the next day's paper, and working
frequently until 10 or 11 at night due to technical and printer fuckups causing
delays. Things weren't exactly like paradise but it was tolerable.

Then, around 2006 or so, the shit had begun to hit the fan.
After the corporation which owned the paper had piled up a shitload of debt
from a big acquisition and merger, suddenly the salad days were over. It was
time for the Corporate Gods to make some draconian cost cutting moves at every
single one of the newspaper properties, usually accompanied by excuses about
the increasing competition of the Internet and the sluggish economy.

Soon enough, working in the call center as a rep started to
become, um, more "challenging". To describe it as staff reduction by
attrition would be an understatement. The staffing each day became so skeletal
that it was routine for 40, or even 50-plus calls to be on hold for up to 20,
30, even 40 plus minutes at a time. Imagine as well how the callers were
expressing themselves to us once we could actually take their call.

One fine day, the department received a memo that a new
manager was taking over the area including the call center. This new leader,
for thepurposes of this writing, is
someone who I will furthermore refer to as The Bug (because to me, she so
closely resembles the alien cockroach who took over Edgar's flesh in Men In
Black). The Bug has an interesting academic background. Fact: apparently her
MBA thesis was on call centers... and outsourcing.

Sure enough, exactly two months after The Bug's takeover announcement, we were notified that our call center was, indeed, being
outsourced.

I was married at the time, and my then-wife and I had just
returned home from our second anniversary trip to San Francisco when the phone
rang. It was The Bug, calling to let me know that the call center was being
outsourced, but "the good news" was that I "still have a job"
because my seniority was only a few months below the ten year cutoff that all
of my other co-workers, save one guy with a couple of months more tenure than
I, was subjected to. Furthermore, my job duties were being shifted to focus on
an area in outbound calling known at the time as Retention, which, pretty much,
was just overglorified subscriber bill collection work. Somehow, I didn't feel
lucky to have "survived".

The following week, The Bug called me into her office for a
transitional orientation meeting. Or some shit. The Bug
likes to speak in a rapid fire manner which promotes a pushy,
argument-winning-goal sort of manner, while attempting to cover up the fact
that she has little, if anything, constructive or intelligent to say. She
mentioned some vague goal of "keeping transparency" amongst our
customer base and retaining people who, though never stated in so many of her
actual words, are those realizing that they don't like to read the paper anymore and
are dropping like flies from the circulation numbers which padded her performance goal bonuses.

Needless to say, I wasn't even slightly impressed with The
Bug's rhetoric, and began to search for another job and work on writing my two
week notice letter. Several days after that meeting,and about two weeks before the call center was officially
closing, I received a visit from the manager of the department that handled the
information systems work related to circulation at the newspaper.

He informed me that he needed a systems coordinator in his area and
was not a fan of the outside hiring process. Essentially, if I was interested
in the position, it was mine. This was not a complete shock to me as I had
applied for the same job with another manager of that department, previous to
the one who was currently in charge and making me the job offer. I had been
passed over then for another guy who, in my opinion, was actually much more qualified
and adequate for the position than I. This time, feeling like a miracle had
happened and gladly welcoming anescape
from under The Bug's tentacles, I quickly accepted the job offer.

Although the new position started out with tough lessons
(frequently learned from mistakes), long hours and mega-brain strain, the work
was much more preferable to me than what I would have been doing under The Bug.
I took college IT-related classes at night. I generally got along okay with
folks in my department. I felt a sense of self worth and accomplishment to some
degree. The money began getting better as well.

And then, one fine day, the shit once again began to hit the
fan.

In 2008, the first round of buyouts were handed out among
the company workforce, and that included my own special white envelope,
containing a packet detailing my monetary offer and other information about
what I would get if I accepted (two weeks pay per year of service). I turned
down that offer. In 2009, it was yet another white envelope arriving in my
interoffice mail with a similar buyout attempt. I declined that offer as well.

However, many of my fellow coworkers did accept a buyout. As a result of those reductions, and as well as some folks who simply
bailed for greener pastures (and then had their positions eliminated) a short
time later, a workload that was generally handled by about seven people was
suddenly the responsibility of around three. Personally, I was in the, um,
"challenging" position of doing the work of what previously would
have been at least four people on my own.

Although I was handling it, the workload and the stress beat
me down tenfold compared to before. Somehow, I managed to persevere, and got
great performance reviews and recognition from higher-ups along the way.

Then, the layoffs, or, as the publisher liked to euphemize
them, "staff reductions" began. Five of them over the next four
years.

There was a merry dance in play in my department featuring
what I began to call the "Death Seat". It was the workstation
directly to the right of my own. At least three, or maybe at least four
coworkers met their job-related execution there. They would be brought in from
other areas to back up our department's duties, and within a short time, be
summarily shitcanned in the next following staff reduction from that very
seat.

In 2010, a work area was brought into my department which
dealt with the initial edition, section and page creation of each day's
newspaper. A daily newspaper's production has to start somewhere, and this page
creation work was the particular area. My manager offered me the opportunity to
get involved in the page creation area as an addition to my existing duties,
and I accepted. At the time, I was supposed to be the third wheel, so to speak,
backing up the two page creation workers who were already in place. Little did
I know at the time that there were already machinations in place to get rid of
one of the workers, and sure enough, one month after I accepted the offer to
work in that area, the page creation employee in question was shitcanned in the
next wave of layoffs. This is not something that I was proud of witnessing by
any means, despite the fact that the damage done from my agreement was
unknowing, unwilling and indirect on my part.

In comparison to the database drudgery that I had been
previously been slogging through, I had considered it to be great work. First thing
I'd do, when it was my turn to work on the pages, was pull a data report on the
ad inches. Then I'd do some simple math, come up with column inches and add
those to the editorial column inches each section. Then I'd draw out a press
chart, and using page creation software, form the actual pages and lay out the
display ad space for each page. Eventually, I send the pages out and viola! The
Daily Miracle begins.

And, yes, I did make what I just described appear to you,
the reader, as being a lot less complicated than the work actually is,
especially in the area of making mistakes, in which you virtually are not
allowed to do so. One minor goof can hit the pressroom, the plateroom, the ad
layout people, and/or editorial, singularly or any combination thereof. Despite
the pressure, the work was a great learning experience about all areas of the
newspaper industry, and constant contact clear across the board with people
working in all areas.

The page creation work was, if anything, meaningful and
relevant, especially compared to my work in database administration, which was
becoming increasingly more banal.

The Bug, at this point in time, was a director in charge of
matters related to circulation sales and marketing. Among her, ahem, bright
ideas was the brilliant move to sign the newspaper up as a client with online "deal of the day" websites.

While sites like Groupon, Living Social and the like might make sense to a sushi bar,
in terms of newspaper subscriptions, it's a complete waste of money, resources
and time. You can line up NAA and Inland flunkies left and right to try to
refute me, but having worked directly withthe raw data, fuck whatever they have to say in rebuttal. I stand by my
opinion. Using these sites to sell newspaper subscriptions is the dumbest marketing tactic
since New Coke.

The newspaper started selling Sunday only subscriptions
through Groupon for barely what it cost to print them, and as an added bonus,
Groupon was taking in half of the money from each and every subscription sold
for the privilege of using their service. Groupon offer codes are, to the untrained eye, gobbeldy gook. They are seemingly nonsensical (though actually sequential) text combinations, with the goal of creating a unique piece of data tied only to the specific coupon purchase. Expecting most, let alone any,
customers to accurately submit a Groupon offer code, much less expect an
overstressed data entry worker or customer service rep to avoid mistakes, is
wishful thinking at best. Additionally, Groupon's reporting on these codes
sucked ass. I had created a database query which somehow managed to corral
these codes with the customer records and send them down as paysheets to the
accounting department in order to actually associate a monetary payment for
each subscription. Of course, since there were numerous errors in the Groupon
codes with these subscription orders, many of them never got tracked and did
not make it through my database.

Somehow, The Bug's twisted, flawed thinking concluded that
the data entry errors were my responsibility, and she ordered all of the call
center reps to email me every single time a customer's Groupon
"payment" did not get posted, despite the fact that these were
because of data entry errors entered "upstream" from my reporting and
I could not do jackshit about it.

Of course, there were lots of errors, and therefore I was
forced to plow through literally hundreds of emails to let people know that the
codes had to be re-entered correctly before they could be counted as valid
payments. In other words, I was entrenched in needless and unnecessary work for
much of my day. My numerous attempts to appeal to my manager and anyone else
who would listen to stop this crap from being dumped on me went unresolved and
ignored.

As time went on, the supervisor handling the page creation
(and the only person left to do the work full time) became extremely stressed out due to the increasing communication breakdown with advertising
reps and managers, combined with the lack of support and the fact that our
department's manager, as well as the division leadership team (most notably among them, The Bug) had negligible
comprehension of her job duties. The weeks before the Thanksgiving Day
newspaper are always the most stressful period of the year for page creation,
and afterwards, at the end ofNovember 2012, the
supervisor took a week long doctor-mandated stress leave.

I covered the entire week of page creation on my own, and
upon the supervisor's return, I personally arranged a meeting between the
supervisor, the department manager and myself to try and straighten out the
issues causing the turmoil. The meeting went well, with at least some
groundwork for improvements laid out, and the department manager sent us a
follow-up email acknowledging that there was positive progress.

Nine days later after our meeting, it was announced that the vice president of our division was getting kicked upstairs (some people would
say "failed upward") to Corporate in a similar but national VP role,
and suddenly, or so it seemed, there was a divisional schism in the cards. The
pressroom manager was now going to be director of a new division dealing
chiefly with the printing, transportation and general production of the
newspaper. There was a second division created which was responsible for, among
other things, the circulation customer service, distribution and sales.

The Bug was announced as the VP for this new division, and
that was where the page creation supervisor and I ended up.

The page creation supervisor, however, did not stay under
The Bug for long. Four days after the divisional split took place, the supervisor received
a visit by the new production director, during which he informed her
that she was transferring to his new division. One hundred percent of her job
duties involved page creation, so for her, it was an easy transfer. Not so much
for me. At executive meetings over the following couple of weeks, the outgoing
VP as well as The Bug, according to the person informing me, had reportedly staged rather toddler-like tantrums, protesting
that under no circumstances was I going to do any work in another division,
much less transfer out of my current one. Needless to say, I didn't feel very
flattered after finding that out.

I had invested a considerable amount of training, hard work
and effort into my page creation duties, and had no desire to end working in
that area. The page creation supervisor had no issue with me working with her,
and in fact, dreaded the prospect of having to train a replacement. It was a clear example of leaders and decision makers who were lacking a clue.

Despite the supervisor's efforts to retain me, and my
vociferous objections, the ball stayed in motion to drum me out of page
creation. My efforts to get help through the human resources department were
rejected. One HR official told me to "put (myself) in (my management's)
shoes" and work things out with them instead. More like put myself on
asThe Bug's skin. I informed the HR
person that any attempt to meet with the new VP would end badly, but my
objections and appeals were met with deaf ears. Trying to apply HR's advice, I
took up the subject with my department manager at my annual performance review,
which was scheduled by coincidence a week after my phone call to HR, but there
was no budging. The New Order was now in full effect, and my manager was going
to follow The Bug's dictates to the letter.

As fate would have it, about a week after my performance
review, The Bug and everybody else had no choice but to keep me working with
page creation. The page creation supervisor had slipped on the floor at home and
broke her ankle in three places. She was on doctor's orders to stay out of the
workplace for 6 to 10 weeks. As a result, I ran the page creation area for two
straight months. Every edition of the newspaper fromthe middle of February to the middle of April of 2013 was my
responsibility, including one memorable pre-President's Day weekend Friday
where I put up the initial pages for the entire Saturday, Sunday,Monday, and Tuesday editions, as well as the
features section for the following Wednesday andthe home and garden tabloid section for the following Saturday.
Twelve and a half hours working straight through with barely a break. From what I understand, the Friday before the holiday weekend had rarely if ever been
handled by one person in the page creation area before.

The page creation supervisor eventually started a home-based
part time schedule. I was recognized to a certain degree for my extra work,
especially in the form of gift cards from the production director, which came to a final tally of somewhere in the neighborhood of $450. One Friday in April, the
director tracked me down to hand me one final installment of gift cards, and at
that point informed me that, since the supervisor was still going to be working
at home for a while, I will be starting to train my replacement starting the
following week. I replied that I wanted to remain in page creation and there
was no need for a replacement. He countered that there was nothing anyone could
do to change things since the order to replace me came from "on
high". I interpreted "on high" to mean that The Bug channeled
the order through that special superglued nose-asshole connection that she had
with the publisher.

The page creation supervisor, citing ongoing stress and
injury issues, extended her disability claim through the month of May and
continued to work from home part time for another month. This, combined with
the fact that, due to scheduling and staffing issues, my replacement could not
be trained after all, kept me in page creation more or less full time for
another four weeks or so. The supervisor eventually returned to the office on a
part time basis some time around the Memorial Day weekend.

Then, the fateful day of June 6, 2013 came.

I was planning to spend the entire day away from page
creation and fully concentrating on database-related duties. It's not like I
was looking forward to that situation. I was promised that my regular duties
would be covered during the two months I was working virtually full time in
page creation. That promise, of course, was a complete load of bullshit, and I
had a huge backlog of work to catch up on. It was late morning and I was making
fairly good progress catching up on several weeks of paysheets at the moment when
the email arrived at my Inbox.

It was yet one more of those needless fuckin' Groupon
emails.

This one was dutifully (read: lazily) forwarded via
"Service Central" (i.e., one of the in-house customer service reps
emailing me anonymously through a central mailbox) from the outsourced call
center in the Phillipines. It read, verbatim, the following (and yes, the
outsourced rep from the original email was "shouting" in all caps):

"THE CUSTOMER STARTED A NEW SUBSCRIPTION FROM GROUPON
ON 05/12. SHE PAID $19.00 FOR 26 WEEKS DELIVERY OF THE SUNDAY PAPER AND
PROVIDED GROUPON CODE OF [Groupon code redacted - ed.]. CUS(sic) RECEIVED A
CALL FROM THE [newspaper name redacted -ed.] ASKING FOR PAYMENT. PLEASE
VALIDATE THE VOUCHER CODE SO THAT PAYMENT IS APPLIED ON THE ACCOUNT.
THANKS"

Here's my take on what happened. The rep who forwarded this
email read,

"THE CUSTOMER STARTED A NEW SUBSCRIPTION FROM
GROUPON..."

ignored the rest of the email and forwarded it to me.

I had worked as a customer service rep in the call center
for almost ten years. I know that, when receiving an email from a customer, the rep needs to
read the customer's email thoroughly, figure out the specific issue, and try to
resolve it properly. Having actually read the entire email, I deduced that the
problem the customer wasn't having was with a Groupon code. It was with the
fact that they should not have been called for payment and validating the code
would not have made any difference anyway. The customer, having only started a
subscription less than 30 days ago, and started through Groupon, should not
have received a phone call for payment. Period. That was what should have been
resolved.

I emailed the sales manager with the following:

"[Name of sales manager redacted - ed.], whose call
list is this customer ending up on? They started less than 30 days ago..."

The sales manager responded:

"Odd, she
shouldn't have been called by anyone, but I will find out."

I replied:

"Good, I thought something was sort of fishy there.
Thanks."

During this exchange, I CCed the original sender from"Service Central" to keep the
then-anonymous originator of this mess in the loop on this customer. At this
point, I received the following reply from "Service Central":

"They weren't called by anyone, their groupon voucher
wasn't applied."

Um. Say what?

I sent back the following to "Service Central":

"Did you even bother to read the note from APAC
(below?)" [note: APAC = company for the rep in the Phillipines-ed.]

And "Service Central" replied, yet again:

"Yes, I read it. That is why you were copied on
it Michael. They do not have a Groupon payment as of yet. Do you
not hande(sic) this anymore?"

At this point, I just had to know who the fuck "Service
Central" was. After a few minutes of fuming (and yes, I probably did drop
several cuss words while still seated at my workstation), I walked over to the
customer service area, located near my work area, in the same room.

(A little backtracking before I go on. You see, The Bug's
original experiment in outsourcing turned out to be a complete and utter
fiasco. The original company, West At Home, was supposed to handle the calls
with stay-at-home moms in their jammies holding a cup of Sanka, and most
importantly, within the borders of one of the 50 states. That venture was
completely fucked up, so the West contract was cancelled and APAC was signed up
to handle the call center work. They sucked too, so the remaining Retention
reps were retrained to be "VIP reps", in other words, restoring the
old domestic call center to a certain degree to pick up escalated calls when
customers are fed up with APAC's shitty job. Long story short, The Bug's
efforts for "transparency" failed miserably.)

So. I found out that the mysterious "Service
Central" emailer was a part time rep who, 15 years previous, was one of my
supervisors back when I started in the old call center, and who, for reasons I
don't know and could care less about, came crawling back with her tail between
her legs many years later out of desperation for employment. The conversation
we had was only about ten seconds long at best, because I quickly reasoned that
she was a damage case and I was wasting my breath. I went back to my
workstation, tried to regain composure, and typed a final reply:

"The APAC note says that they were called. They should
not be getting called. As (the sales manager) noted, they weren't supposed to
be called period. This isn't because their Groupon payment wasn't
applied."

My manager was on disability leave for surgery. The call
center manager was off for the day. Thus, there was no one immediately in the
chain of command to talk to right away. I realize in retrospect that this was
probably a tactical error on my part, but in light of the absences, and in
order to try and cover my ass, I CCed The Bug on the final email. I thought, at
the time, that The Bug would have some sort of basic reasoning ability and there
could be some sort of civilized resolution to this whole Groupon escapade and
its related problems.

What the fuck was I thinking?

About a half hour after my last email reply, The Bug dropped
by my workstation, and asked me to meet with her in her office for a few
minutes. Although I suspected that we were going to be discussing the email
exchange, I wasn't too concerned initially. We entered her office, The Bug
closed the door behind us, and we sat down.

The Bug told me that the call center rep has informed her
that I was speaking to the rep in a "confrontational" manner. Or some
shit. The rep "felt threatened". Or some shit. Wow, really? That must
have been an amazing ten seconds of venting on my part. Anyway, whatever the
rep was telling The Bug sounded like complete bullshit. Yes, to a certain
degree I was confrontational. She was writing to me like a comment board troll,
and anonymously at that. Yes, I was pissed off. At this point I tried to remain
as calm as possible and give The Bug my side of the story.

It was of no use. The Bug had already decided to play judge,
jury and executioner and proposed that I apologize to the rep for any behavior.
I replied, straightforwardly, that I am not going to apologize, and the rep is
the person who should be apologizing to me. When I tried to go over the points
of the email exchange, The Bug dismissed anything I had to say with the typical
horseshit sentiment about how the rep was simply helping the customer. I
countered that, if the rep had truly wanted to help the customer, then she
would have done what I did and read the entire email and acted accordingly
instead of forwarding the email and making someone else, i.e. me, do her job
for her.

After a few more minutes of useless verbal parrying, The Bug
tried to close things out by stating that she was "concerned" about
my treatment of "the part time rep". Somewhat of a roundabout verbal
warning, and the proposal to apologize was certainly off the table. At this
point, I decided to go in for the kill.

"Before I go, I'd like to know ifwe could take a few minutes to discuss my
role in (page creation)."

The Bug agreed to talk.

So I got to the point. "It's my understanding that
you've been trying to take me off of those duties. Is that true?"

The Bug launched into an even more rapid fire and illegible
rant than usual, in which, seemingly, she name checked the production director
at least five times in one run on sentence. Now, in all honesty, I can't quote
her verbatim, but to my best recollection, to me it sounded something like;
"Well, (the production director) can't budget another full time position,
and (the production director) is having staffing issues, and that work moved
into (the production director)'s area, and so (the production director) is
responsible for the staffing and we can't have you working outside in (the
production director)'s area due to the payroll and company policy. But... [quick
breath] if (the page creation supervisor) leaves, you may have an opportunity
to apply for her position."

Then The Bug paused and stayed locked on her usual forced
smirk. It was at this point when I noticed that her skin was hanging off of her
bones. However, moving forward, I continued the conversation.

I stated that I considered my work in page creation to
encompass my future career with the newspaper. The Bug replied with a customer
service like 'Well, I'm sorry but..." and launched into scripted blather
about plans of the division and my important responsibilities with the
databases. Or some shit. I then stated that I did not want to stay in the
division, that I wanted to be transferred out to other work. The Bug, of
course, told me what I had already expected to hear, which was that
transferring outside of that division was not an option, with more nonsensical
run-on babble.

At that point, my mind was made up. As I was getting up to
leave the office, The Bug made one last comment: "We have plenty of work
for you here."

Well, I was sure in my mind by then that The Bug was wrong,
because as of that moment, under no circumstances was I ever going to work for
her. Therefore, there was absolutely no more work for me in that division.
However, I didn't want to give The Bug the satisfaction of hearing me tell her
that I was quitting, let alone giving any notice. The way I see it, saying
anything like that would have been showing respect that she certainly had not
deserved.

Immediately after that meeting with The Bug, at that point
in time was when I usually would take a lunch break. I grabbed my water bottle
from my desk and headed towards the exit, but first, I stopped off in Human
Resources and asked for a voluntary resignation form. On the way out, I ran
into the page creation supervisor, and we went back to her office to discuss my
plans. I told her about my final meeting with The Bug. The supervisor told me
that she would support whatever decision I would ultimately make.

I lived a block away from the newspaper. I went home, sat
back for about a half hour, and after trying to contemplate the options,
decided to go for it. I filled out the voluntary resignation form, and left it
at home while I went back and picked up a few personal things from my
workstation. I didn't speak to any co-workers or say goodbye to anyone. Then I
went home to get my resignation form and returned one last time to Human
Resources.

The HR people were unbelievably efficient and
coldly procedural in processing my paperwork. It could not have taken me more
than three minutes to have officially signed off on quitting my job of sixteen
years, and absolutely no one had tried to find out the reasons why I was
resigning, much less stop me from doing otherwise. As a matter of fact, HR made
it incredibly easy for me to pick up my final paycheck (including my 110 hours
of accumulated vacation pay) at the guard's desk less than twenty four hours
after I showed up in the HR office to resign.

Fine with me. I wanted the quickest clean break possible.

In the end, my old job as a systems coordinator was filled. True to form, after posting a help wanted ad for about a month, the manager made an internal hire, and naturally, from the ranks of the call center. My page creation duties were also filled, by someone working in the advertising division, in other words, someone from a division other than where the page creation supervisor is located. The Bug is probably just happy at this point that at least it's not somebody from her division. Or some shit.

During my 16 years at the newspaper, I was never living
paycheck to paycheck. I had made an effort to save money whenever possible,
especially after the buyouts started and things were looking more sour each day.

That said,
I realize that, although there are still quite a few people trapped under The
Bug who would love to escape, the fact of the matter is that many of these former co-workers are in their 50s and 60s
and, virtually held hostage at this point by their paychecks and company health
insurance coverage, none of them see any means of a safe exit. So, sure,
they'll complain about how fucked up it is to work under The Bug behind her back
until the cows come home, but they will always be way too frightened to
actually do anything about it, let alone say anything to her face. Still, I probably feel a lot more sorry for them and their situation than any of them ever would for mine, and that's probably the way that both parties should be feeling.

My take on my future? As if anyone out there really cares?
Not like I don't blame you. But anyway. Well, if I run out of money eventually,
and no one ever hires me again and I find out the hard way that working for The
Bug was the only true option, I would gladly accept death on the streets. What
the hell, I'm 50 years old and I should get worn out and killed by the elements
fairly quickly at my age.I already spent 20 years literally working my way off of the streets. If this is the result of all that hard work, frankly, I don't see any point in attempting to come back a second time.

The thought has crossed my mind that perhaps it was a mistake not to have committed suicide immediately after quitting. At least under those circumstances a number of people would have had to answer to something.

Many people who don't work under The Bug still have to work
with her and deal with her, and that's why many people at the newspaper despise
her. Most of the people outside of her direct leadership, however, have at
least taken solace in the fact that they are not directly under her rule. That
sense of reprieve may change, and I hope for their sake, later as opposed to
sooner. Why's that? Well. You see...

There have been somewhat longstanding and credible rumors
that have been circulating which indicate that The Bug is practically
guaranteed to be in line to become the next publisher for the newspaper.

Hopefully, there's a lot of resumes being updated at a
certain place of business nowadays.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

I finally did it. It was a decision that I had wanted to follow through upon
for so many years, but then one day the opportunity arose, and it finally
happened.

I officially became an independently registered voter.

I have always been, for no actual reason, registered in the party of my
father. My mom didn’t bother to ever vote for her entire life for some
inexplicable reason. It’s not that I had any strong disagreements with the
party of my ancestors… well, let’s revisit that last opinion. I had plenty of strong
disagreement on more than one occasion. I have determined over time that “this
party” was worth joining because I had learned to despise “that party” so much,
and “this party” was the only thing stopping “that party” from completely
fucking up the country.

Then I, in not quite so bold of a revelation, admitted to myself that it
simply didn’t make any difference. The major players of both of these
monopolizing parties are going to serve toxic special interests on one level or
another. And in addition, the smaller so-called "third" parties don't
have anything special to pull me into registering with them, so the wise route
for me at this point is to simply stay independent.

Ah, the feeling of independent thought.

There's a few owned, scared, dogmatic slaves to conformity out there who
should try it sometime.

Perhaps we'd have some actual positive change for once.

Yeah, I know, that's asking too much.

Sunday, September 01, 2013

The fast food workers of the world, or to be specific, those
who have stood up and demanded a living wage for their labor, are in my opinion
the bravest and most righteous workers that I have seen or heard of from in a
long, long, time.

Fast food: it's not a teenager's rite of employment passage
anymore. Nowadays the college educated head of a family is out flipping burgers
and running the register. Why? Well, it's the economy, stupid. As manufacturing
and tech jobs make their way overseas and corporations get greedier and more
skinflint-like with their strategy, many companies are hideously understaffed
on purpose. For any of the work still paying anything halfway decent, and even
(or rather especially) for skilled occupations, the jobs are limited thanks to
the psychopathic level of profit taking and preservation.

The pathetic environment created by this economic idiocracy
is only further cultivated by the cowards remaining in the labor pool who can
(usually barely) pay their bills. They are scared shitless to address staffing
issues, or the ongoing decimation of their pensions and health benefits, or the
numerous other cost cutting stunts seemingly only in action in order to ensure
that executives get fat paydays, with management thrown a semi-meaty bone
occasionally for aiding in the bloodletting.

I have a suggestion for resolving the fast food plight. The
gummint can do the following: specifically reach out to fast food employees earning
starvation wages. Give each and every one of these employees food stamp
assistance, free or greatly reduced cost health care, and as many forms of
assistance as can be conceived to help their financial shortcomings. In return,
tax the FUCK out of the franchise owners paying these pitiful wages. Give them
an alternative, though. If they raise pay to a living wage for their employees,
the taxes are reduced to an amount which would give them incentive to do so.

The alternative to that plan would be if rank and file
workers from all areas finally had the spine to organize and address the
shortcomings and employment tactics in their respective workplaces. The power
of today's social media, combined with good old fashioned in-person meet and
greet networking, can go a long way to lash back against the fools who are
trying to squeeze the sponge of the economy.

Sunday, August 04, 2013

Sometimes, people need to endure considerable hardship for
what they believe in. On relatively rare occasions, this most certainly
involves a risk of death.

Economic terrorism at the hands of controlling class has
been a standard for too many centuries to count. The subtle, and in frequent
cases, blatant methodology in forcing conformity among workers by industrial
despots has been proven largely effective in environments where there is little
to no resistance or solidarity against the despotism.

At times in history, the death has been quite quick and
violent, such as the numerous labor riots and insurrections which had often
resulted in murder of the proletariat protestor at the hands of the
authoritarian oppressor. Other times, the death is prolonged, with hunger
strikes or life imprisonment or remote banishment. There is a sick pathological
need for many in the realm of power and control to force suffering upon the
less fortunate when the opportunity arises.

I see it this way. If I have to die rather than give in to
these oppressors then so be it. If I get by, with or without the level of
comfort I could have otherwise, that's just fine as well, but in no way am I
going to submit to a submissive life of voluntary puppetry at the hands and
strings of this evil force. And suicide is a quick and easy copout, which would
only make certain parties with power and control very happy. Suicide is simply
not an option for me.

I have realized that, within the essence of my own
existence, that I would rather be dead than living in a lie. It may not be the
key to happiness, but it sure is liberating, and that's a victory beyond
value.

Sunday, July 07, 2013

Well, not exactly the public face of your boss. I'm your
boss's psyche, or perhaps, it may be more accurate to describe me as your
boss's conscience.

I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of my true
feelings toward you right here, right now. You will never get this kind of
candor from your boss in your actual workplace, because, quite frankly, your
actual boss is too much of a fucking coward to tell you what I'm about to tell
you to your face.

That said, I'd like to take a moment to discuss a matter
which I find rather urgent and troublesome with you.

Remember that employee who quit? Yeah, the one who didn't
give any notice?

Well, I have a message for all the rest of you who are
staying behind, and putting up with the same shit, and not doing anything about
it.

You'd better not get any fucking ideas.

For starters, you're probably not even nearly as financially
secure as that motherfucker who quit without notice. That guy was saving his
money paycheck after paycheck, for the entire 16 years he was working here.
That motherfucker might put in for Unemployment Insurance and even get awarded
for checks since, although he quit, he really wanted to keep his job and we
treated him like shit by overworking him and then taking away his most skilled
job duties without cause. Even if, or more probably, when our high paid
corporate attorney wins the case for us and he's denied, he's not going to have
to start worrying about where his next rent payment comes from for at least the
next five, six years or so.

You sad sacks of shit, on the other hand, don't have it so
good. Now, do you? You decided to pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and put
yourselves up to your asses in debt with nice houses and cars and fancy
restaurants and vacations and bar tabs at clubs, spending a whole fuckload of
money you don't have on shit you don't need. Right?

Yep, you're my kind of people. A bunch of servile stuck pigs
in my poke, scared shitless about being the next one to go to slaughter. I'm
going to do anything I want to do to you, within legal boundaries, and without
them if I can get away with it. What are you going to do about it? Quit?

Go ahead. Get sick of my bullshit and give me two weeks
notice. You'll be back. You might even leave because you've found another job.
But they'll just treat you like shit. Just like I did. You'll be back, with
your tail between your legs and more subordinate than ever. And I'll gladly take
you back, you pathetic little bitch ass fool, because that will only make me
look good. Now that you have returned to my dungeon, I can totally shit all
over you for the slightest reason and you can't do a fucking thing about it.

Face reality. You're not going to do anything. You're
becoming less and less united and organized as the days go by. Have you seen
the steady drop in the percentage of workers who are actually in trade unions
nowadays?That's the best news I've
heard in years! Beyond encouraging. For me, maybe not for you.

You know, my mistress and I were on a little vacation
ourselves in a third world resort just a few weeks back, and we both marveled
at how reverently subservient those people are. When they were refilling our
glasses with water, or opening the car doors or scraping the dog shit off our
shoes for us, we couldn't help but notice how happy and smiling and docile they
were, and both of us concluded that it must be because they were so happy to
have their jobs, and just thankful for what they've got, no matter how
overworked, underpaid and generally abused they are.

The mere sight of all that brought a tear to my eye. It
truly did.

Because that is my vision... of my United States of America.

I see a nation that someday pounds an iron fist into these
pathetic labor rights that fools back in the old days died for in those silly
labor riots. We need to eliminate all of this eight hour day, forty hour week,
minimum wage nonsense and teach all of you filthy uncouth serfs what it's like
to really work for a living. And gradually, day by day, that is exactly what we
are moving towards. You, American Worker, will help us to reach that utopian
oligarchy of my dreams. Just keep that attitude going where you are completely
scared shitless of losing your job, whether that fear is based on rational
thinking or not.

Do you even realize, how many assholes I had to lick clean
to get to where I am today? I am going to celebrate that accomplishment every
day for the rest of my career, by knocking you down to the ground and walking
all over you, grinding my heel on your head, every chance I get.

Now, get down on your knees and start sucking the plastic
dildo of Corporate America! You know you love it.

And then, go get me a Venti 7 Pump no Whip White Mocha, like
a good little voluntary slave.

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Being a long time city dweller, I have
had enough direct encounters with the homeless population. To
compound this knowledge, I have also had a few extended stints of
not-quite-voluntary “urban camping” myself over the course of my
life.

I suppose that it can be considered to
be some sort of educational advantage, in striving to understand the
issues surrounding homelessness, that I have looked at the situation
from both sides of the fence. I'm at a loss to determine if I feel
any deep sense of empathy with other homeless people from my
experience, and yet I can't feel absolutely sure that I would not end
up right back on the street again someday.

From what I've witnessed over time,
both from a homeless and sheltered perspective, personality types and
traits run the gamut regardless of one's place in society. For
instance, I can focus upon the types of folks that I encounter on a
regular basis moving through the alley behind my kitchen window, who
poke through the garbage and recycling bins at the apartment complex
just across the way.

Most folks seem to be reasonably
considerate and don't make a mess or much noise with their
scavenging, and are considerate enough to close the bin lids and
leave things like they had practically never been there. Others go
out of their way to fuck shit up, slamming anything they can,
scattering debris everywhere, and occasionally shitting and pissing
whenever and wherever the moment works for them, and sometimes
defecating right in front of the gate where I go in and out of my
home each day. The range of civilized behavior (of lack thereof)
doesn't seem any different to me in relative scale in comparison to
people in a sheltered lifestyle. It's just that the daily routines
and challenges required for daily survival happen to be radically
different on many fronts.

As far as I can tell, folks that I have
encountered who hold the most contempt for the homeless tend to have
had the least need to struggle to survive. They tend to complain
about freeloaders but also tend to be beneficiaries of trust funds,
parent-funded educations, inherited homes, family owned businesses
(or jobs acquired through nepotism and patronage favors), and /or
“opportunities” that could easily be defined as a free ride.

The only solution to homelessness is
actual permanent housing. Instead of the fairly inhumane strategy of
warehousing people into human corrals, there must be a genuine effort
to expand the level of actual residence to permanently shelter those
who are homeless and not by personal choice. Once the wheels are
rolling to house people who are circumstantially in need, the ability
to concentrate on those who are unable to cope with sufficiently
taking care of themselves, just lingering around out there and messed
up, can be sharpened and improved.

Nowadays more than ever, the situation
of homeless individuals can not be pigeonholed, much less dismissed
as a mere nuisance or hindrance.

Sunday, April 07, 2013

No, I don't have children, never wanted
them, and never will. Of course, aging past the half century mark has
lowered the odds of that ever happening, although many other guys
much older than myself have shot their sperm into a younger more
fertile reproductive tract just to replicate.

Perhaps being forced by life to “grow
up” too fast and too soon had something to do with this, but the
fact is that I just can't stand children. When a bunch of screaming,
running brats are anywhere near me, I can't help but think that even
a pack of barking playing puppies are far less annoying and not even
nearly as potentially dangerous. Get some little snots in a
relatively unsupervised environment and someone's property or even
person is guaranteed to get damaged one way or the other.

Among other things that annoy the
living hell out of me about human nature is how those people who have
chosen to spawn offspring are under some sort of belief that they are
entitled to a higher position of privilege in society than those of
us who have chosen not to do so. These idiot breeders are somehow
self-absorbed in the belief that their offspring is divinely destined
to the inherit sole control of the universe.

There has been a completely unproven
premise presented by some folks that if the population rate turned
negative, there would be a shortage of the caretakers and innovators
of the future. I would present the opposite opinion. Education as
well as subsequent career fulfillment would actually be far less
competitive, and therefore we would have educated professionals who
are truly choosing their fields and not just settling for them.

Downsizing the human race would be the
smartest and most logical way to save the planet. The only truly
dangerous and destructive threat to Earth's well being seems to be
humanity itself. Its extinction would most probably be of utmost
benefit to the ecosystem, save for all of the shit it has already
created and would leave behind.

Sunday, March 03, 2013

Advertising has got to be one of the
most egregiously evil ideas in the history of humankind, and
somewhere down there on an ethical level with fascism and pedophilia.

Advertising spreads itself like a
fungal infection across urban landscapes, freeways, TV shows, radio
broadcasts and mailboxes. People in the advertising industry are
insatiably money hungry leeches upon the skin of society. If they
could get paid to completely cover every wall, pavement, vehicle,
tree trunk, leaf, article of clothing, rock and animal carcass with
some sort of cheesy ad or another, which would be trying to sell
useless, stupid shit to the public, then they would jump at the
opportunity in a heartbeat.

The most revolutionary way to rebel
against advertising is to simply ignore it. Sure, I look at an ad
insert once in a blue moon, but for the most part, my shopping habits
are controlled simply by walking into a store and checking out what's
available. Occasionally I will use store discount "club" cards, but at least
I can select among items that I always buy all the time. I'm a
creature of habit and pretty much know what I like at this point in
life by now. I loathe even the contemplation of using coupons,
especially since they tend to be insignificant discounts on a bunch
of useless shit that I would never normally buy. To top it off,
newspaper and mass mailing manufacturers' coupons usually are for
heavily media-advertised items anyway.

The challenge for most people who are
unable to ignore advertising, from what I can gather, is rooted in
the same self-imposed repression of critical thinking which is caused
by an amplified struggle to work and earn a living, combined with the
nonstop attempts to brainwash folks into buying things that they
don't really need (or even want that much, in many cases) with
credit, a.k.a. money that they don't really have available to spend. There may be a bigger picture to contemplate here. Perhaps the true
challenge lies in the individual to grow accustomed to trust in his
or her own opinion, innate intelligence, and personal sense of
judgment.

If advertising has succeeded in anything re: an ability to
impact and influence the modern world, it has worked wonders in its
ability to instill self-doubt, low self esteem and bourgeois
materialism in its targeted denizens.

Sunday, February 03, 2013

The Establishment Media at the local
level is becoming more and more pathetic by the day.

Newspapers are turning into a sad pile
of advertorial and wire-service-padded dreck. With unceasing cutbacks
in staffing and penny pinching efforts at production costs come
reduced newsholes and the appearance of each daily edition as no more
than an advertising circular with a wee bit of content thrown in,
fortified increasingly with ego drunk, barely readable self centered
opinion pieces with no use to the public trust whatsoever. There
should be little if any puzzlement as to why print news media is
losing readership in a never ending free fall over the past several
years. What the fuck is left to read anymore? Why plow through a
newspaper with a page featuring a five column by eighteen inch ad (on
a six column by twenty one inch page) just to jump to a continuation
of an article when you can probably read the same stuff online with
less attempts to interfere with your concentration?

Local television increasingly isn't.
Oh, sure, TV news is still mostly led with the usual murders and
fires, but anything of relevance to anyone at the neighborhood level
(especially after the first five to ten minutes of the newscast) is
dwindling. Desperate for viewer ratings, newscasts substitute the
latest whiz bang mobile live truck technology for any sort of
reporting of substance. Local stations are padding their daily and
nightly broadcasts with increasing amounts of corporate sponsored ad
spots disguised as public interest items mixed with infotainment.
Most of the “breaking news” shit is usually fires, accidents and
cop chases in cities clear across the state or even the country, with
no local relevance at all.

Is this perhaps a sign of the times?
Many people seem simply disinterested at increasing levels in what is
going on in their world, whether locally, globally or otherwise. It
may well be true that the local Establishment Media is giving its
audience what they want in the sense that, not only does the audience
seem to even know what the fuck they want anymore, but deteriorating
resources at news outlets are incapable of determining local
information needs anyway. What local communities get as a result is a
hodge podge of flashy but limited ability all gussied up and
disguised as actual journalism.

Is it time to start ignoring,
boycotting and subsequently shutting down all this shit? Would it
really do any good? These unholy alliances between the media outlets
and advertisers are simply too strong to see any sort of marked
termination of the current practices, much less their operations. A
core element of any local populace is going to slink right along like
rats to the Establishment Media's Pied Piper tunes. Maybe it's time
for some of us who are not quite as afraid or lazy in employing our
critical thinking abilities to start an open and vocal critique of
the what these corporate swill pushers are trying to shove on us as
relevant news and information for the useless garbage that it truly
is.

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Whatever happened to proactive concern
for safety and well being in this country? Or, to be realistic, has
proactive concern for safety and well being of the nation as a whole
ever really existed?

American Establishment society,
especially through its various organs of communication, almost seems to
enjoy the opportunity to gnash teeth and wax philosophical whenever a
mass murder occurs. Well, at least when it happens domestically.
There's this inherent paradox which consists of the expression of
shock and sorrow whenever these shootings occur, as if these
incidents shouldn't happen in America, despite how many times they
occur in relatively short periods.

I don't have any sympathy, and
certainly no level of empathy, for anyone who would go and kill
others as these mass shooters have done. Still, with the emphasis on
concern to keep people safe and unharmed, it can't hurt to send out a
message to anyone considering such a pointless and destructive
action. Suicide prevention is presented in public service
announcements as a general call to anyone considering harming
themselves, or knowing of someone who might, to avoid allowing harm
to happen and seeking help. If that approach is used to deter people
from hurting themselves, why can't a similar tactic be deployed to
keep people from hurting others?

No one in the public arena stands up
and says to the faceless ones who may kill in the future: “You must
reconsider your plans. You must not allow these selfish destructive
plans to consume you and destroy the lives of others. You must stand
down.” Instead, they just stick to the usual pointless diatribes
about gun control and indoctrination to media influence. Folks with a
cynical streak in their thinking may feel like a proactive message of
that nature may be a waste of time. Can anyone show me a suggested
“solution” that has worked at all so far?

The focus on looking at improvements in
mental health treatment is interesting but doesn't seem to come even
close to doing anything to making any real impact on future violence
from happening again. Most people diagnosed with mental illness
aren't violent anyway, and are actually more likely to be victims of
violence than their fellow citizens in the the allegedly sane
population. You know, those folks who pass the Personal Firearms
Eligibility Check and then stock up on umpteen guns and thousands of
rounds of ammo.

Instead of treating this problem as an
afterthought, waiting until the next batch of funerals to engage in
broadcasting the hand wringing and useless diatribes from all of the
usual talking heads, why not at least make a serious effort to affect
the sensibility and attitude of an entire population? Perhaps Mr.
Lennon was on the right track with that “War Is Over” stuff after
all.